12 Couple Journal Ideas for Relationship Fun

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Last Updated on September 30, 2022

Journaling is one of the most effective self care activities, so why not do it as a couple?! These couple journal ideas will have you filling up your journal with tons of exercises for learning more about each other, growing your relationship, and reflecting on the good times.

Communication is one of the most important parts of a relationship, and journaling is just another way to get that communication in!

In fact, it can take the pressure off of responding on the spot like you would in a normal face-to-face verbal conversation. Taking the time to thoughtfully write your responses in a journal to be shared with your partner can help you better articulate what you really want to express.

Not only can you reap all the benefits journaling has to offer like reduced stress, improved wellbeing, and less negative thoughts, but you also create a safe space for you and your partner to freely share and record anything you’d like!

Ready to strengthen your relationship and dive deep with your significant other? Then let’s get into these super unique, effective, and intriguing couple journal ideas!

Table of Contents

Starting Your Couples Journal

Starting a special journal just for you and your partner is a great way to connect on a deeper level, record your favorite memories, and learn more about each other. It’s creative and fun!

It helps to ask yourselves: what is the goal of your couples journal? What do you want to gain out of it? What do you want to be able to look back on? A journal can be as deep or as light-hearted as you want.

It can be an avenue for expressing your feelings to each other (many people find that expressing their feelings in written language instead of verbally is easier!). Or it can be a way to remember all the good times you’ve shared together.

Talk about what you want to get out of your journal and let that guide you toward directing the pages in a way that benefits you both! I like the way Janae Munday, LCSW puts it, “think of your journal as a special conversation between you.” Because it totally is! Keep that in mind as you go through these couple journal ideas.

12 Ideas and Tips for Journaling as a Couple

This post outlines 12 unique tips for couple journal ideas to try with your significant other. I’ve got you covered with ideas for self-reflecting together, planning together, expressing love and gratitude, and for long distance relationships. Whatever you’d like to achieve in your journal together, this list should get your creativity flowing!

Couple Journal Ideas for Self-Reflection

Reflecting on each other, yourselves personally, or the relationship as a whole is a healthy thing to do. See how far you’ve come together and how you can continue to support each other and grow as a couple with these couple journal ideas!

1. Share Your First Date Story

No two stories are alike, and we all have a different perspective on how things came about! Choose to recount either your first date or the first time you met your partner.

The best way to do this is to write a page recounting the story yourself, then hand the journal to your partner for them to recount their version of the story. Don’t look at each other’s stories until the end, and then compare the two!

When I first did this with my partner, I was surprised to find that he was intimidated by me the first time we met! I was so nervous and caught up in my own head that I wouldn’t have dreamed he thought I was “out of his league” (as he put it!), but that just goes to show you never know what they were thinking!

2. Jot Down Your Shared Interests and Character Traits

When you’re asked, “what do you have in common?” your mind may jump to shared interests such as cooking, running, video games, and other hobbies. Shared interests are one thing, and they are awesome! But there’s something even more important to consider between you and your significant other.

And that’s your shared character traits. Are you both ambitious? Enjoy getting out of the house? Adventurous? Open-minded? Homebodies? Character traits are arguably more important than interests when it comes to how well you connect on a deeper level and your outlooks on life.

Together, sit down with your partner and brainstorm two different columns in your journal: your shared interests and your shared character traits. Or, you could even make a venn diagram outlining both your own interests and traits and see where the overlap is!

3. Reflect on the Similarities and Differences In Your Backgrounds

My boyfriend and I grew up in VASTLY different ways! I was raised in big cities all my life, grew up an only child, and had a lot of struggles in my childhood. He, on the other hand, stayed in the same small town all his life, had 2 siblings, and had a pretty easygoing childhood.

Reflecting not only on your background differences, but also how they shaped you into the people you are today is super valuable! You can learn a lot about each other this way and realize the ways in which your upbringing had a positive or negative impact on you.

Couple Journal Ideas for Planning Things Together

“Always be planning the next step” is great advice for keeping your relationship a priority and mapping out your future together! These couple journal ideas will encourage you to think about all your dreams and goals together as a couple.

4. Identify Your Goals and Plans for the Future

Planning for your future together can be so exciting! There’s a million different ways your lives together can go, so consider some of the following when writing out your dreams and plans for the future:

What kind of home do you want to live in?
Where, in the world, do you want to live? Rural, country, city?
Do you want to get married? If so, will you have a wedding or elope?
Do you want children? Why or why not? If so, how many?
When do you want to “settle down” and buy a house, get married, etc.?
What types of things do you want to save for together? Traveling the world, buying a house, opening a business?

After you’ve assessed where you both stand on some of these areas, write down specific goals to work on together as a couple and an action plan for getting there.

You should absolutely check out my printable goal planner that gets into all the nitty-gritty details of making goals that actually STICK! It walks you through how to not only set the right goals, but all the step-by-step actions for actually staying on track to achieve them. Click to learn more about it below!

GET THE PRINTABLE GOAL PLANNER

5. Create a Bucket List

Planning real set-in-stone goals is necessary, but having a little more fun in your goals is good too! That’s why I suggest creating a couples bucket list together for all the things you might want to do over the course of your lifetime (or over the summer, or whatever suits you!)

Things to think about when creating a bucket list as a couples journal idea:

The places you want to travel to
The restaurants you want to try
The activities you want to try together
Things you want to achieve in your lifetime
The people you want to meet
The concerts you want to go to

Absolutely anything can go on your couples bucket list–the sky’s the limit! Make it fun 😊

6. Brainstorm One Thing You Can Add to Your Relationship

It’s easy to fall into a too-comfortable routine when you’re in a long-term relationship. Life gets busy, work can be all-consuming, and household chores can feel endless. In order to nurture your relationship in spite of these things, think of something you can add to keep your relationship alive.

This can be new date ideas, a new weekly hobby you pick up together, something in the bedroom…anything you both enjoy!

My boyfriend and I created a fun way to come up with new date ideas: put rainbow popsicle sticks in a mason jar, with each color having a category for things like indoor date ideas, outdoor date ideas, restaurants, etc.

Write your favorite places in town on each popsicle stick according to the category, and draw a stick from the jar at random each time you plan a date night! Little activities like this can help to keep things exciting.

Couple Journal Ideas for Expressing Love and Gratitude

Never take your partner for granted. Always make sure you’re showing them the love and gratitude they deserve, and make sure it’s mutual on both sides! These couple journal ideas will help you express your appreciation for your one and only.

7. Record Good News and Milestones

Sometimes it can feel like bad news overpowers the amount of good news we receive, but this couples journal idea will shift your perspective!

This is a super quick and easy journal idea that doesn’t need a lot of dedicated time. Each time something good happens in your lives or you hit a new milestone in your relationship (moving into your first apartment, getting a good job offer, or even having a romantic ice cream date), record it in the journal!

Taking note of all the wins both big and small will make you happier and give you something positive to look back on!

8. Write Love Letters to Each Other

It might be old fashioned, but it’s a good one! Take turns writing love letters to each other in your couples journal expressing fond memories and all the things you love about each other.

Making dedicated time to get personal and sentimental with your partner will make you both feel loved and appreciated. Some of the best gifts I’ve received from my partner have been love letters, so they really are that meaningful!

9. Make a Gratitude Journal

Turn a section of your couples journal into a gratitude journal! This can be as simple or involved as you want it to be. You can simply jot down a list of all the things you’re grateful about your partner and your life together. Or you can respond to detailed gratitude journal prompts like these.

If guided journals are a big help to you to get the thoughts flowing, you’ll love my printable gratitude journal! It has gratitude exercises for morning + night and weekly + monthly. You also get to dive into thought-provoking gratitude journal prompts to keep you focused and on track! And lastly, you can set gratitude goals for yourself and monitor your progress toward living a more grateful life.

long distance relationship journal ideas

GET THE GRATITUDE JOURNAL

Couple Journal Ideas for Long Distance Relationships

Anyone who’s been there can agree: long distance relationships AREN’T easy! But with two devoted, committed people they certainly are possible. Support each other during long distance with these couple journal ideas for making the miles apart feel less challenging!

10. Make a Digital Journal Entry Each Time You Need Support

You can get a simple digital journal like this one from Etsy that both you and your partner can access and collaborate on.

This is really awesome if you’re in different time zones or have different schedules, because you can send the digital journal back and forth and check in on your partner’s thoughts and feelings even if you aren’t available to talk at the same time.

You can use it for venting, sharing your day, or even sending little love note blurbs whenever you’re thinking about your partner!

11. Fill a Mason Jar With 100 Reasons Why I Love You

My boyfriend and I dealt with long distance pretty early in our relationship, so our first Christmas together involved a cross-country visit to see each other. My Christmas present to him was exactly this: a mason jar with 100 reasons why I loved him. He absolutely loved it!

I bought a small mason jar and mini sticky notes to write my little “reasons” on, folded them up, and placed them in the jar. This is a great idea because it’s something you can either mail off, or save for when you see them in person next!

They can read through the notes whenever they need some encouragement or when they’re missing you.

12. Dream Big About the Day You Close Your Distance

Long distance relationships should always have an approximate end date somewhere in sight. This keeps you both motivated to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So once you’ve nailed down the day you’ll close your distance, discuss what that entails!

Will you move in together? Where will you move to? What kind of home will you live in? What types of dates will you go on regularly? Talking about what life will be like when you finallyyyy get to reunite for good and see each other on a regular basis can really keep your spirits up!

Best Journals to Buy for Couples

Find it easier to stick to a journal when you’re using a guided one? Grab one of these couple journals if you like something that’s already put-together for you to fill out!

1. The Adventure Challenge: Couples’ Edition

SNAG THE ADVENTURE CHALLENGE

This is probably the most unique couples journal because it’s a scratch-off memory book! The Adventure Challenge: Couples’ Edition keeps you on your partner on your toes by having you take on a new MYSTERY adventure…and you don’t know what it’ll be until you scratch it off!

Once you scratch it off, you’ll reveal a new spontaneous activity to try. It could be baking a homemade apple pie while blindfolded, re-creating your grandparents’ first date…and tons of other wacky fun things! Definitely keeps the spice alive!

2. The Book of You & Me

GRAB IT ON AMAZON

The Book of You & Me journal offers 365 days of questions for you and your partner to run through together! The questions are super intriguing with tons of variety and range from thought-provoking hypotheticals, exploring your pasts, envisioning the future, and much more to uncover you and your partner’s deeper thoughts. A great tool for learning more about how your brains work!

3. The Lover’s Journal (In a Pair!)

SHOP SMALL ON ETSY

Instead of having just one journal you share together, you each get your own with The Lover’s Journal! It’s a co-creative, guided journal for couples. This features 52 weekly journal prompts (rather than daily like the journal in #2, so it may be more do-able to keep up with!) also with monthly challenges and exercises.

These journals are perfect for allowing you and your partner the space to express yourselves freely and listen without judgment. It also allows you to highlight all the little things that made you fall in love in the first place–and what’s still to love!

I hope you make the time to explore journaling as a bonding activity with you and your partner! These couple journal ideas will keep you inspired, connected, and most of all always-learning and growing together!

Happy couple journaling!

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